Shake off the Dust

Dust accumulates, so does our soul’s cleaving to it. A soul catches by pursuit the powdered clay, and melts, cheapened, and dissolves for lack of lift. A soul can faint as a body lacking bread, hugging gravity’s drag. Love defies all, flies away.

I noticed something; I wanna go down, I’m one with the tow — “O just a little slumber in myself.” A beckoning, a sirens call, a lure, a lust, a hell-bent, “come down, come on, it will feel so nice.” Now, self-respect cannot accompany; it too walks away.

The tax-collector wants his, also; as the wind of waste, so the debt of treachery. Give hell a place, incur a debt, let your hair down; it will yank you lower. Caught; we cry, “O who will deliver me from myself?”

“Love, please return to enlarge this tent, set my steps as springs, inspire my well-being, O Word of grace!” “Why do you wait, why stand afar off? My yearning and languish, are they not enough? – Yes, love may rescue our sobbing for a while, but what of Dignity? Do I cherish a juvenile temperament forever? Can’t I yet pull myself together, Mon? Can’t this diving soul be compassed north? Yes, there’s hope.

He waited for a long time before speaking; so listen to the words of Elihu, “His soul comes close to the pit and his life to those who bring death. If there is for him an angel, a mediator, one among a thousand, who can vouch for the man’s uprightness; then God is gracious to him and says, ‘Redeem him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.’ His flesh becomes fresher than that of a child, he returns to the days of his youth.” Job 33:22-25

O precious friends, who will vouch for our righteousness? We need a love but also a sticker; a right-standing before our owner, an approval certificate, a love that has a permanent effect, a grace if you will, a presence builder. Whether we ascend up to Heaven or bed down in hell, we must have “Thou art with me.” Where is this ransom, the redeemer intervening?

“O wretched man that I am,” Cried Paul, “who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then *I* *myself* with the mind serve God’s law; but with the flesh sin’s law. Romans 7:24-25 Darby

Now let this sink deep into your soul from Romans 8:1 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” NASB. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” ESV. “Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation awaiting those who are in union with the Messiah Yeshua.” CJB. “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.” Darby

(The additional words of this verse,”who walk not after the flesh etc.”, in the Textus Receptus have but slight support, having probably been supplied from Romans_8:4. They are out of place here.) Pulpit commentary. See J.F.B. and Clarke, “This last clause is wanting in the principal MSS., versions, and fathers. Griesbach has excluded it from the text; and Dr. White says, Certissime delenda; it should most undoubtedly be expunged.”

O glorious day, all of my digressions: those moving away from the personal to the impersonal, those backsliding from the objective (God centered) to the subjective (me centered), those going away from sound-mind/surrendered-will functioning toward emotional begging, or those leaving grace’s secure under-girding into a guilty/shaky state; all are consummated in an unconditional “no condemnation.”

Listen to the Psalmist, in Psalm 42:5-7 “O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan…” The Jordan is the narrow, winding, dirty river cir-cum-navigated at the water-standing-on-edge, for Joshua. It represents death itself. Nevertheless, we skate through, through death to life, from desert to promised-land, and the reproach is rolled away.

In closing, Elihu continues “He prays to God and is accepted by him, so that he sees God’s face with joy, and God repays the man for his righteousness. He declares before everyone, ‘I sinned; I perverted what was right, and it gained me nothing. God redeemed me from going into the pit, and now my life sees light.’ Job 33:25-28. See it? Accepted, God rewards His righteousness in Job, and redeems him from the pit, but also from going to the pit. Light shines continually.

Lastly, from the Psalmist again; “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” Let’s let its waves go over us and let it go deep, “I know that my Redeemer lives!” “No condemnation,” “I’ve passed from death to life.” Beloved, can we allow a plateau of victory to shore up our soul? We will fail again, but less and less. Though the righteous man falls seven times, he just gets back up! Back up to His everlasting love. Love ya